Portrait of Courage

Lebanon, MO (KSDK)- Winter is never rushed in Lebanon, Missouri. It hangs on, like the last leaves on a tree. But even when it snows here, it's not enough to wash the grief away.

"It's just a matter of getting up and you know you have to take care of your kids, " says Sarah Parrish.

For Parrish and her two children, 5 year old Hayden and 1 1/2 year old Gracie, it's been a difficult time. Sarah's husband Larry, a combat engineer with the Missouri National Guard was killed in Iraq last October by a roadside bomb.

"He could be in a group of people not knowing any of them and before he left, everybody would be his best friend, " she explains.

What Sgt. Parrish didn't know was that he had friends he never even met. On this day, that's something Sarah discovered when a package arrived. It was a gift from a woman 1, 253 miles away.

From the art studio in her home in Manti, Utah, Kaziah Hancock is on a mission.

"The thing is, I can't just take and take and take and never give nothing back, " she says.

As bold and vibrant as her paintings, Kaziah is gifted with both a brush and a lack of inhibition. On her easel, she begins a portrait of Sgt. Parrish using not just her hands, but her heart.

"I mean this is a daddy. This is a family man. He was just in a war zone because that's what he had to do, " she ponders.

When she heard about the first Utah soldier killed in Iraq, she wanted to do something for his family.

Three years later, she's done something for the families of nearly 300 fallen soldiers.

"This war is just the saddest damn thing in all the world, " she says.

Kaziah's original oil on canvas landscapes and portraits have sold for as much as $15,000. Her paintings of fallen soldiers are given to their families for free.

"The tragedy would be, if they were to be forgotten. That would be the tragedy, " Kaziah explains.